New strategy in play for eDreams Odigeo

THE BOSS of eDreams Odigeo laid out a new six-point growth strategy for the Spanish travel company as it seeks to draw a line under last year’s ticketing woes that caused shares to tank on its market debut.

eDreams, which is the world’s largest online travel company, made its debut on the Madrid stock market in April last year, but was forced to suspend trading in October after shares plummeted 50 per cent.

The fall came after Iberia and British Airways alleged that eDreams’ booking processes did not meet EU regulations and pulled ticket listings from the site.

The group was also hit by changes to Google’s algorithm, which it warned would make full-year earnings “difficult to discern”.

It resumed trading on 27 Octo­ber after the airlines agreed to resume selling tickets on its sites.

In a trading statement released yesterday for the year to 31 March, eDreams said revenue margin grew by one per cent to €436m (£276m), while adjusted net income fell by 36 per cent to €13.4m.

The Opodo and Travellink owner said its non-flights business, which includes car rental and hotel reservations, continued to drive growth with its revenue margin up seven per cent to €87.6m year-on-year. Revenue margins at its flight business were flat at €348.3m.

The online giant’s chief executive Dana Dunn said it plans to tackle changing consumer habits by focusing on six areas such as expanding into non-flight related products and improving its mobile platform as people increasingly book holidays on their smartphones.

“We have thoroughly assessed the challenges and developed a robust action plan with a strong and renewed senior management team to drive the business forward,” he said.